RELAX – IT’S EASTER

by Adam Harbinson

I know the twenty-first century Easter story is about bunnies and fluffy chicks and Easter cards and chocolate eggs, but now that it’s over for another year, did anybody notice a hidden message about death and resurrection and new beginnings?  

I was in Israel a few years ago and I visited Galilee where Jesus cooked fish on the beach for breakfast, Bethsaida where he miraculously fed 5,000 men, the river Jordan where he was baptised, the room where he ate the Last Supper with his friends, and Gethsemane where there’s an Olive tree so old it might still have some of Jesus’ DNA on it – so we were told.

To to stand in the place thought to be the Garden Tomb early on an Easter Sunday morning, was breathtaking. You could almost hear the voice; ‘Why seek the living among the dead?’ Even the fact that much of the experience was manufactured for tourists could not take away from that life-changing moment.

But Easter was a horrible event, the truth about crucifixion is too barbaric to be told in any detail. There were no three crosses standing on a hilltop silhouetted against an April sky. Criminals were crucified near Golgotha, beside the Jericho Road, a busy thoroughfare, to maximise their shame. And then the corpses were dumped on a rubbish tip just outside the city of Jerusalem where dogs would eat them. The name of that dump was Gahenna. It was such an awful place that the word Gahenna was frequently translated ‘Hell’ in the New Testament. Jesus’ family was spared that final ignominy when Joseph of Arimathea and his friend Nicodemus took Jesus’ body and gave him the dignity of a decent burial.

When I think of Easter I think of the words of Paul the apostle in his letter to the Romans. He said Christians have been buried with Christ so that just as he was raised from the dead, they too may live a new life. And that’s what Easter’s all about, although the heart has been commercialised out of it, all that’s left are the bunnies and the chicks and the chocolate eggs, and that’s a tragic omission.

Why? Because people the world over are filled with fear, and it’s as true in the church as it is outside it. Here’s what I mean.

Those of you who read my last book; Savage Shepherds, will know that the early nineties were a bit difficult for me – I was accused of theft and fraud. Thankfully nothing ever came of the harrowing police investigation, for I was innocent, but it was terrifying. There was one occasion when I almost cracked under the strain of it all, and then it occurred to me that if I were to die the case would be closed, for you can’t accuse a dead man of anything.

That’s the power of the Easter story. Not only did Jesus pay the penalty for the sins of the world, including Sadaam Hussein’s, Harold Shipman’s, George Bush’s and mine, but so far as God is concerned, the requirements of the Law of Moses have no more claim on me than they would if I were lying peacefully in a Cemetery.

Millions of Christians live in fear, and nobody has ever told them that because of Easter, the words ‘punishment’ and ‘anger’ aren’t in God’s dictionary. Nobody has ever told them that because of Easter, they were buried with Christ, they were raised with Christ, and there’s a new life for them to live. Because of Easter, they need not fear the past, for it’s gone, and there’s nothing to fear in the future because as far as the law is concerned, they are dead.

Has your pastor ever told you that? If he has, tell him he’s one in a million. If he hasn’t, ask him why. Either way you can relax, because of Easter.